I unlocked Subclassing last night, which means IT IS TIME. Put on your theorycrafty hats. So far I'm thinking this for my party:

Protector + Hero: Seems like an obvious combo. Taunt based tanking seems to actually work in this game compared to all the previous entries, so the passive HP-rate based skills from the Hero seem like a great fit. It's not a game changer by any stretch, minus random battles being a little easier if I use Physical + Elemental shield from the Hero line (and keep the Prot defense skills for FOEs and Boss fights).

Medic + Sovereign: Not creative and this goes back to how I handled subclassing in EO3 (Monk + Princess). It wouldn't allow the Medic to attack from the back line really at all, but it'd allow me to heal small amounts while applying buffs or countering debuffs (the latter of which I can't do at all at the moment).

Landshark + Survivalist: I'm only thinking of this for two specific reasons. First, my Landshark is equipped light to get the most out of elemental chasers, and they currently sometimes go first unbuffed before my Survivalist does (who has full-rank Speed Up). So half-rank Speed Up on the Landshark should guarantee first strike passively. I also want to test Finishing Shot; it doesn't specify requiring a bow, so maybe it can work for melee characters.

Survivalist + Gunner: Yeah I have a trend of reinforcing existing strengths. I was thinking Zodiac subclassing because my Survivalist is the most TP starved character in the group, but the TP return there is contingent on the killing blow and at half-rank that only grants 1 +1% TP. So Gunner it is. Penetrator and Multi-Shot are givens here, Phys ATK Up and TP Up help too. If I end up having points to spare, Pop Flare or Shell Shock could end up helping a bit.

Pugilist I have NO IDEA what to subclass with. Mine has come around in a lot of respects, based on using the single-target binds to trigger a chain of attacks. TP isn't really an issue at the moment, since the TP restore is triggering pretty often. That won't be as much the case if I push my binds to the max rank. I don't know if doubling up on Status ATK Up will work at all, because in previous games they have made the highest-level skill alone apply. Shogun has Peerless Demon, giving a buff on damage done based on number of attacks done the previous turn. Landshark has okay passives to dip into. Ninja provides TP cost reduction, evasion increase, TP restore on evasion, and a very tiny chance to instant-kill on a normal attack; it'd pretty much guarantee near infinite TP for my Pug.

I'm still way off from subclassing (still working on 4th Labyrinth B3F and the 3rd Maze), but for my own Pugilist, I was thinking about Arcanist or Harbinger. Although the Pugilist will probably be too busy throwing out binds and punch barrages to try and throw out half-rank ailment skills, the debuff skills might be a good support investment. They'll last longer for Harbinger, at the cost of more skill points. Alternatively, if you don't think you need additional roles covered, you could throw in a Farmer sub to put a few labyrinth support skills into the party.

If status attack up doesn't stack, Ninja is still probably your best bet if you're already evading a ton on a pugilist. Don't forget their proficiency is still a 6% damage boost for two points even with half ranks.

If status attack up doesn't stack, Ninja is still probably your best bet if you're already evading a ton on a pugilist. Don't forget their proficiency is still a 6% damage boost for two points even with half ranks.

Oh, I didn't even notice that. For some reason I thought the Proficiency skill was knives-only. Good call.

And yeah, like I said, I'm kinda blitzing through the game. I just hit Labyrinth 9 a few minutes ago.

I changed my mind about my Landshark subclass, going with Imperial. Forgot about the passive element boost, but also they get TP recovery when hitting an elemental weakness. So heck yeah.

Edit - OH SHIT the TP restore works on any chain attacks the Landshark does.

For what it's worth, driveblades can use sword-skills.

I'm using Rapier for the speed bonus. I know the Landshark has a buff that guarantees first turn and all (let alone the Force ability) but those also provide a damage buff and I'd rather have the consistency speed provides, especially in the exploration phase of the game.

I changed my mind about my Landshark subclass, going with Imperial. Forgot about the passive element boost, but also they get TP recovery when hitting an elemental weakness. So heck yeah.

Edit - OH SHIT the TP restore works on any chain attacks the Landshark does.

For what it's worth, driveblades can use sword-skills.

I'm using Rapier for the speed bonus. I know the Landshark has a buff that guarantees first turn and all (let alone the Force ability) but those also provide a damage buff and I'd rather have the consistency speed provides, especially in the exploration phase of the game.

Oh yes, speed is of paramount importance in random fights. One nice thing about Survivalist is that they're stupid fast and can also make the whole party stupid fast (or just give someone priority). The slimes in L3 are much less dangerous when you can slam a flame arrow into them before they get a turn.

Speaking of, L3 pulls a dick move too.

Giant's Maze is awful as well, I got halfway through before getting fed up with the encounter rate (no more ward chimes yet and I'm like 10 levels short of where I'd actually put a point into Survivalist's skill for that, since they get so many important skills at veteran)

Well, beat L3, one shot the boss. Bind Gunner real good. I feel my damage is lacking atm, hopefully taking Natural Edge to cap now that I have Impulse available helps.

Survivalist TP is having issues. Just really needs to be using skills often it seems but doesn't have any TP passives. Really wish I could take subclasses already for that delicious Ninja sub (Chain Dance and watch the TP roll in).

Gunner also burning the TP. Big pool at least. Sovereign is doing fine, can get the TP refund on buffs going, though nobody else has any buffs to hand out in this comp, well... Imperial can actually - and it's a massive defense boost I haven't actually needed yet (it would cover drive turns... if I wasn't lining them up with things like Miasma Tsunami to make the enemies impotent anyways).

Harbinger can start cranking miasmas soon though with Black Wave to offset the higher costs. TP/turn is delicious. No non-status attacks until 40 is not.

Edit: Also I need to go back and do the last room of Giant's Maze, I left after the main goal there was done because... uh... no.

L4 is new, isn't it? I don't think this design is from any of the older ones... is it?

One-shotting a boss and then complaining about lacking damage... geez. But I guess that's in the nature of Imperials to just hand out deletions in pronounced bursts.

I had quite a bit of time to play today, and brought my party through the 4th Labyrinth. (It is from a previous game, as a note in my first spoiler.) Just a few notes about the most recent explorations of Adamant Guild, dated Dormouse 3...

4th Labyrinth

(Waterfall Wood, from EO3)

It was lovely to revisit Waterfall Wood, but given the interactions with Charis and Rob early in the labyrinth and potential parallels to the labyrinth's source game, I was a little bit worried about how the story would turn out. Then again, given the softer nature of how the two EOU games treated the story, perhaps I shouldn't have worried so much.

I had a bunch of deaths on the last floor, including a couple to a nasty Devilfish + 4 Fanged Fish formation. Without binding the Devilfish's head on the first hit, I just didn't have enough defense to keep standing. I also had one death against Narmer Wicked Silurus because of my expectations from the original game. I expected to be able to recon some kind of boss puzzle, but ended up getting thrown into battle right away with only about 2/3 of my max TP. Once again, I had to use up all of my TP to defeat it at party level 28... the game is keeping a fairly steady difficulty, even as my guild's coffers have become more comfortably full.

3rd Maze

(Alpha Ruins)

Anyone else get wrecked by a Forest Wolf the first time into the maze? That was quite a nasty surprise. The formation with two Forest Wolves is just a pain.

I've figured out how to get to the boss of the maze without getting spotted, but reinforcements are just too numerous and quick right now for me to do anything about it. I might need to try taking down solo Skolls first in order to get an idea of their beefiness anyways. Or it might be better for me to keep on moving forwards for now; I still haven't taken down the boss of the 2nd Maze (Giant's Ruins) yet either.

It really shows how well designed EO dungeons are in general. The system of variable encounter rates creating more dangerous and less dangerous places on the map without actually telling you it's doing it is a large part of why exploration is fun.

But here it's just far far too obvious that on the 3-4 tiles where not killing the enemies in 1-2 turns will let a FOE trap you they cranked the encounter rate stupidly high just to mess with you. Instead of a tense experience where you have some close calls you end up having to restart rooms constantly since the enemy got lucky and landed a full party sleep, denying you the quick kill to keep FOEs in the positions where you can bypass them.

It really shows how well designed EO dungeons are in general. The system of variable encounter rates creating more dangerous and less dangerous places on the map without actually telling you it's doing it is a large part of why exploration is fun.

But here it's just far far too obvious that on the 3-4 tiles where not killing the enemies in 1-2 turns will let a FOE trap you they cranked the encounter rate stupidly high just to mess with you. Instead of a tense experience where you have some close calls you end up having to restart rooms constantly since the enemy got lucky and landed a full party sleep, denying you the quick kill to keep FOEs in the positions where you can bypass them.

You may want to wait until you can decrease the encounter rate.

And the later part requires fighting to get them to move since they start in positions that block things.

It really shows how well designed EO dungeons are in general. The system of variable encounter rates creating more dangerous and less dangerous places on the map without actually telling you it's doing it is a large part of why exploration is fun.

But here it's just far far too obvious that on the 3-4 tiles where not killing the enemies in 1-2 turns will let a FOE trap you they cranked the encounter rate stupidly high just to mess with you. Instead of a tense experience where you have some close calls you end up having to restart rooms constantly since the enemy got lucky and landed a full party sleep, denying you the quick kill to keep FOEs in the positions where you can bypass them.

You may want to wait until you can decrease the encounter rate.

And the later part requires fighting to get them to move since they start in positions that block things.

I can almost make it the the second shortcut, but the encounters get vicious at that point. The combination of partywide sleep and linepiercing attacks that oneshot my backline is... not great. I'll probably clear out the third maze and come back and stomp it, it's simply annoying.

It really shows how well designed EO dungeons are in general. The system of variable encounter rates creating more dangerous and less dangerous places on the map without actually telling you it's doing it is a large part of why exploration is fun.

But here it's just far far too obvious that on the 3-4 tiles where not killing the enemies in 1-2 turns will let a FOE trap you they cranked the encounter rate stupidly high just to mess with you. Instead of a tense experience where you have some close calls you end up having to restart rooms constantly since the enemy got lucky and landed a full party sleep, denying you the quick kill to keep FOEs in the positions where you can bypass them.

You may want to wait until you can decrease the encounter rate.

And the later part requires fighting to get them to move since they start in positions that block things.

I can almost make it the the second shortcut, but the encounters get vicious at that point. The combination of partywide sleep and linepiercing attacks that oneshot my backline is... not great. I'll probably clear out the third maze and come back and stomp it, it's simply annoying.

Yeah, mechanically I find it clever, but I'm also very glad it's a maze and not tied to any kind of progression.

I can't sleep so I'm poking at the game still. I just made it to Labyrinth 10 and I am not happy to see this place again. Oh also plot stuff.

From Etrian Odyssey 4.

The Golden Caves. Time to play hot & cold all over again. Also, on arrival to the new island, one of the Forest Folk from the first game was spotted. I'm excited, but also worried. They weren't happy with what happened in the first game and after the (very heavily implied) decimation of their people by explorers, I doubt they're going to be any friendly this time around either.

Just made it to labyrinth 5. I finally understand this specific game's pacing and I still disagree with everyone - it's not the same as previous games in the series. At any rate, L5 spoilers:

Enemies from EO5 confirmed. No idea if this is meaningful or not yet.

Also YO we have multiple tiers of walkway in dungeons now! The ladder icon can be placed on the high or low ground to indicate where you go up and down, it'll change on your map accordingly to wherever you place it.

My team is really starting to hum with chip healing from the War Magus and Hero keeping the party topped up pretty much all the time and the Pugilist bind infliction rates becoming more reliable. My Gunner's preparing to move to a Charged Shot build, to stand alongside the Zodiac in the back row. I can definitely see where the progression feels slow, though: my levels definitely feel far lower than previous games for this amount of time and exploration invested. More notes on the 5th Labyrinth in my own spoiler.

(Southern Shrine) Exploration and Boss Spoilers

I really liked how the Southern Shrine was set up as the end of the first act of the game, between interacting with a bunch of allies throughout the labyrinth and having the town NPCs voice lines change to more familiar tones. The dungeon itself was also neat, with some EO5 enemies showing up and the introduction of the new multi-level pathway gimmick. I was also a big fan of the Frightening Flowerbed quest. As a long time EO player, you kind of have to cringe upon hearing the need to deal with Petaloids, so its resolution was a great twist.

The boss also had some pretty nasty tricks, especially with its ability to prevent binds and ailments from being lifted. I probably had a level or two more than necessary (Party level 37) to take it down, but I wasted a couple turns testing out the mechanic. The extra level(s) were probably what let me scrape by on my first attempt at the fight. In retrospect, I probably should have tested whether or not my Pugilist's Fault Blocker and Hero's equipped sword's Mind Vigor buffs would have cancelled out the debuff. I did spend a bit of time wrapping up as many loose ends as possible on the island before taking down the boss, which included revisiting Golem. It was a fairly easy fight due to my drastically improved equipment and levels, but also because I discovered that the War Magus's War Response debuff cancelled out Golem's Regen buff, despite both having fairly different effects. I don't actually know if the buff/debuff categories line up for Shellbeast to allow for that kind of cancellation, since that would have probably made the fight a bit easier.

Yesterday I got to the last boss of the game and after some attempts I just give up. That shit is fucking impossible, so I'm just done with the game now. I'm really sad because of how disappointed I've ended up after being so hype for Nexus.

Yesterday I got to the last boss of the game and after some attempts I just give up. That shit is fucking impossible, so I'm just done with the game now. I'm really sad because of how disappointed I've ended up after being so hype for Nexus.

Yesterday I got to the last boss of the game and after some attempts I just give up. That shit is fucking impossible, so I'm just done with the game now. I'm really sad because of how disappointed I've ended up after being so hype for Nexus.

Normal final boss or postgame final?

Story final boss (as I've come to call them). I haven't seen the post-game yet.

Yesterday I got to the last boss of the game and after some attempts I just give up. That shit is fucking impossible, so I'm just done with the game now. I'm really sad because of how disappointed I've ended up after being so hype for Nexus.

Normal final boss or postgame final?

Story final boss (as I've come to call them). I haven't seen the post-game yet.

As a heads up, Atlus is doing a survey right now asking people for feedback on lots of stuff. Etrian Odyssey included. There's a sweepstakes involved too, to win a hefty gift card on the Atlus or console storefronts. Participation only requires taking the survey (just make sure you check the right boxes after you complete it & enter your email).

Yesterday I got to the last boss of the game and after some attempts I just give up. That shit is fucking impossible, so I'm just done with the game now. I'm really sad because of how disappointed I've ended up after being so hype for Nexus.

I remember taking a few attempts at the final story boss of EO5, it's not too unusual for final bosses in this series to be major challenges. I think I went around beating up FOEs to blow off steam and gain experience, which did the trick. It's kind of funny how much just one or two levels can completely flip the disposition of a battle. You might also just create a copy of your save in a new slot, bump down the difficulty, and just go in guns ablaze. If you've come this far and have scouting knowledge of the battle already, you might as well just do that for closure on the story.

Yesterday I got to the last boss of the game and after some attempts I just give up. That shit is fucking impossible, so I'm just done with the game now. I'm really sad because of how disappointed I've ended up after being so hype for Nexus.

I remember taking a few attempts at the final story boss of EO5, it's not too unusual for final bosses in this series to be major challenges. I think I went around beating up FOEs to blow off steam and gain experience, which did the trick. It's kind of funny how much just one or two levels can completely flip the disposition of a battle. You might also just create a copy of your save in a new slot, bump down the difficulty, and just go in guns ablaze. If you've come this far and have scouting knowledge of the battle already, you might as well just do that for closure on the story.

It's not the same thing though. Like in previous games, it was like "oh okay they do this on this pattern, I can get it next time," or just a bad RNG roll here and there.

This though? This is a new level of fucking dumb shit. I think Nexus was made with power-building players in mind only. "Just do this precise build and the game is EZ mode" types. Which is unfortunate to encounter in a game that gives you skill build options.

I guess I'll find out in a few weeks once I finally get to the endgame. My party doesn't feel like it's particularly optimized, but I've still been able to get just enough leeway to recover from mistakes or inopportune events in the boss battles so far. Despite progression being a bit slow, I've been satisfied with the game so far.

One thing I'll give Nexus over the rest of the series is the creativity of the dungeon design on the exploration end. It's more demanding, particularly when it comes to movement based puzzles, but not in any unfair or unmanageable way.

Setting a turn up with every buff active, Miasma Tsunami, and then everyone else just unloads is delightful and took off some 1500 HP or so. Of which half was a single hit from Assault Drive. Turns out this party can reliably set up the triple drive (Ignition+Drive, Drive, Conversion, Drive) safely between Riot Gun, Miasma Tsunami, and Mirage Arrow to ensure it's always going off first, and it's a LOT of damage when I've got buffs and debuffs rolling.

My Harbinger has nearly bottomless TP now that she regens 5/turn with Miasma Armor up. I need to bump Atonement up a tier to keep its healing up now that I can afford it. Natural Edge does a ton of damage since it applies any added element (so I get +attack, -def, and +element bonuses to the damage all stacking up) and it's dirt cheap (5 TP at rank 7, it goes up to merely 7 capped out).

Those throwaway points in Blind Shot on my Survivalist keep doing work - I only took it to start working on the evade tree but a lot of stuff is weak to it and it's a crippling status effect.

Gunner continues to be clutch, that boss lost half its half doing basically nothing after I landed a leg bind on the second turn. Reliable binds are disgustingly good, and I haven't had the points to spare to get the Harbinger debuffs for them yet (and I keep forgetting Miasma Tsunami is a chance to get a second bind on since it's a massive bonus to infliction rates).

Sovereign is sovereign and still kind of an OP class spamming buffs and heals every turn. Pivoting to attack mage kind of has to wait until 40 though.

Edit: And of course I'm now realizing that 2/3 back line characters have good reasons to pivot to front line on occasion depending on who's doing what (mainly because Harbinger can pivot to the back while debuffing/healing to let evade tank Survivalist or Sovereign come forward to hold the line for a bit... not that either of them can't do all their damage from the back just fine... but that front line slot is helpful for when I finally get subclasses and get Imperial/Hero bullshit running)

Between EO2U and EON, Sovereign kinda took a hit on offense capability. It takes more time to setup and I'm not sure the return is worthwhile. In EO2U you just had to chain off another elemental attack. In EON I guess they took the one (EO5) Shaman specialization's route, which I didn't use in my party (but it was probably as much of a pain to setup). Sometimes a Sovereign can get some downtime in a fight for a turn or two, and if it turns out to be the former, you waste a buff slot setting up an attack you can't execute on.

That Shaman was a staple for big number in 5. Dance Oracle is one of the most big number skills. 50 % chance to increase the buff's duration instead of losing it. 40 % in Nexus, but no big number anymore. Decent number instead. Worth using if for some reason you aren't buffing.

Big number often considers slots that are not element-buff to be wasted.

That Shaman was a staple for big number in 5. Dance Oracle is one of the most big number skills. 50 % chance to increase the buff's duration instead of losing it. 40 % in Nexus, but no big number anymore. Decent number instead. Worth using if for some reason you aren't buffing.

Yeah, I wanted someone to do magic stuff, but not use Zodiac, and the only other options are Arcanist and Sovereign really. Sovereign can pick elements, and then row buff with arms and attack order and spend the ally arms first to keep the element bonus... and potentially go nuke three turns in a row? More if they proc the no-removal passive. It gives me another option to do big damage with elements instead of melee because basically all the other damage output I have is cut or pierce locked (I'm not going down to the elemental drives and am focusing on sword combos on my Imperial, my Gunner is building for binds and the ricochet tree, etc).

I can probably afford to lay off buffs some of the time though with Harbinger bringing debuffs, Gunner bringing lockdown, and a party where literally everyone is a healer.